


The Dark

by stressedegg



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Dead TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dead Wilbur Soot, Emotional Manipulation, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Hurt No Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Manipulative Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), My First Work in This Fandom, Pandora's Vault Prison, Prison Arc, Resurrection, Warden Sam | Awesamdude, also canon ressurection, ghostinnit, i hate canon phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-29 01:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30148569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stressedegg/pseuds/stressedegg
Summary: I'm gonna be real I didn't like the resurrection episode, so basically, this is my rendition of it. In which Tommy contemplates death and Wilbur isn't a dick.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Kudos: 13





	The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> TW: death, feelings of burning, and feelings of hands on body  
> let me know if I need to add more  
> also let me know if you wanna see more like this or something different I wrote this at school so it was all a blur

It all happened at once. Flashes of red and green sparked across his vision as he struggled for any resemblance of breath in the suffocating heat. Death simply isn’t what he imagined. It wasn’t short and sweet, like Phil used to whisper to him on cold and dark nights to try to remedy the fear coursing through his small frame. However, it wasn’t long and dramatic like Wilbur used to lament throughout the course of his life and unfortunately throughout the end of it as well. Death was confusingly simple for 

Tommy as most things he witnessed in his lifetime were.  
He woke up in a room, much smaller than he would’ve liked. Or at least, he thought it was a room, his eyes could not grasp any sort of shapes or forms, but he certainly felt trapped physically. Everything was quiet except for his ragged breathing, which no matter how much he tried he couldn’t get enough of the crisp air coursing through his body. It was harsh, like the nights in Pogtopia where the only warmth radiating through the button-lined cavern was the slowly dying fire. On the first-night he cried. He cried and sobbed for a home that was no longer his and on the first night Wilbur held him. He held him so close the walls were no longer pressing into his ears, and all he could hear was the somber, humming tune of L’manburg’s forgotten anthem. Nights like those hurt the most, because he couldn’t pretend that his family was back together and his home was still standing. On nights like those everything was too real and present.  
It didn’t stop him from wishing he could go back. If anything he longed for the familiarity of the pain he had known in the past. As he sat in the frigid death-box he wondered if this is what Wilbur felt like when he died. When the warmth of the blood spilled over his brown coat had finally stopped or when Phil’s adrenaline-filled shock ended to see the sight before him, of a dead son who no longer wished to be part of the very dream he built. Then, it finally struck Tommy. Wilbur was here. Well, not here as in where he was currently trapped, but surely Wilbur could hear him. Maybe he was just outside waiting for him like he said he would. With a newfound purpose Tommy’s voice reverberated around his desolate space and he pleaded with the darkness.  
“Wilbur! I’m here. I’m s- so sorry! Please, come out Wilbur I miss you, please, God please!”, his voice rang out, crackling like a growing ember.  
Silence rang out. He was alone. He was fairly confident Wilbur would greet him if Tommy was truly dead. So maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t dead. This was some cruel taunt, a final gift from his good friend -- wait, no -- Dream wasn’t his friend. Friends don’t leave the other in places they don’t understand and friends certainly do not make him feel small and so much like the child he used to be like so many others had. Tommy swallowed with a shaky breath. He just had to show Dream he was strong, that he could beat this test and then Sam would come back, trident in hand and warden persona standing like a beacon of protection, to save him from this situation that he imagines couldn’t have gotten worse. He just had to have hope he really didn’t die alone, at least in spirit.  


Then a memory crashed into his mind. Schlatt. The horned-man who constantly belittled his longest friend Tubbo and exiled him the first chance he got in his presidency. He ruled L’manburg with an iron fist until the day he died. His death was his real show of power. No blood, no final declaration from the group of armed soldiers about taking back the country they had built from the ground up. Only pained gasps, and, of course, Schlatt got the last word. He always did, no matter how unfair, his loud and gravelly voice laced with whiskey and self-loathing rang out through the room. His death was fast and loud and utterly unfair for everyone, except Schlatt. Tommy mulls it over in his mind, replaying the scene of Schlatt’s unexpected death. The stuttering sentences of those he left behind. Their proclamations of pain and regret kept trapped within the confines of their mouths as Schaltt’s own declaration cut them short. Even in death, he stole things most impertinent to those around him to the point that the only thing that can be heard in his presence is Schlatt’s overwhelming commanding aura. He saw it on Fundy’s face, he saw it in Quackity’s eyes as his -lover?- or possibly only companion in the demanding walls of the White House. Schlatt’s death wasn’t like Tommy’s. It wasn’t violent and bloody and raw. It was sudden and so wholly Schlatt, that even at his funeral his grasp on those around him still remained.  


After Schlatt’s death a weight had been lifted, if only for a brief moment. Tommy folded in on himself holding his legs to his chest tighter than he believed he had ever done, as if he could somehow squish himself out of existence then this would all come to end. An end that eventually led to Wilbur. The void was working against him and it held him tighter then he could possibly manage with his freezing hands. Then suddenly Dream was there. However, he wasn’t really. Only phantom traces of his gunpowder laced affirmations and the rough comforting touches throughout their time spent together throughout the last year.  


All at once the claustrophobia he felt had stopped all at once. Tommy opened his eyes and blinked trying to get the darkness to abandon him, but it didn’t. Instead he wished for the confines of his existential space, so at least he knew what to expect for the possible eternity he had to spend here. So he walked. He walked until his feet felt as though they weren’t there. Maybe they weren’t, he supposed, as the gentle winds scraped against his cheek as if to say he is doing something right. The endless nothingness beneath his feet, reminded him of his journey to exile. The ever-present aura of Dream over his shoulder, as he trudged along the sandy beaches of Logsteadshire. Tommy had been tormented by images of Tubbo staring back at him. He no longer was the friend who sat at the bench with him and would ramble about everything and anything he saw that day. The friend that was by his side through war and death. Not the same boy he only saw through music-clouded memories. Instead, he only saw the determined gaze of those penetrative blue eyes, as he was escorted out of the home he had given everything that was ever given to him for.  


He let out another shaky breath, that left his lungs a little too quickly for his comfort, when he saw it. The semblance of a vehicle. At the prospect of seeing anyone, even if it was Dream, had him caught in a dead sprint to the lights coming from the vehicle. Upon closer inspection, he could see it was the old drug van. The one that had sat so proudly in the middle of the original L’manburg. It seemed smaller than he remembered, but then again, he was twelve when Wilbur first proudly showed him around the thing. His voice was light and airy, but so unlike the shell of a brother that Ghostbur was. This Wilbur, that was engraved in the van, was his. He came to a slow only mere feet away from the thing. Doubt intruded on his mind. This wouldn’t be the first time he had seen something that wasn’t really there. When he saw Tubbo in Logsteadshire, or at least he thought he did, because the instant he turned to cry or to scream or to forgive Tubbo right then and there, he was gone. No particles, no sound, not even a disturbance in the air, and he had vanished from Tommy’s existence. He remembered the way he ran to the spot Tubbo had just once stood only to be met with the sight of his own roughly used shoes on the edges of the forest.  


His resolve hardened looking at the now menacing doorway. He had been tricked before, and he was ready to face the disappointment he had been slapped in the face with more times than he can count. His trembling hand grasped the door handle, and in a sudden burst of his own childish excitement at the prospect of seeing Wilbur, he whipped the door open enough to feel the warmed air on his eyelashes. Tommy took in the sight before him. A homely van, not like the one he remembered, was wrapped around it’s interior. The honey schemed interior drew him into the apprehensive feeling of a motherly love he used to ponder the idea of in his youth. He took a few hesitant steps inside, noting how the carpet of the van felt against his definitely-there feet. He examined the belongings of someone scattered about as if they had left in the middle of a long day in the van. Playing cards were strewn across the table and dust blanketed the table save for a few spots in which the cards must have laid before he popped open the door. He numbly picked up a card and slipped it in his pocket, you could never be too sure.  


Seeing as nothing else stood out in a way that mattered he directed his attention to the drivers portion of the van. Displayed neatly on the dashboard stood a worn and folded playing card. Tommy picked it up noting it’s crumpled texture which had not adorned the other cards. Flipping it over he could see scribbled writing that he had seen on so many song sheets in his childhood. Wilbur. Wilbur had been here and possibly not too long ago. Hope surged through his veins. The same hope he felt before his first confrontation with Dream. A hope for himself, that he may be able to keep going on. He frantically searched throughout the room, hands ghosting over anything and everything. Every nook and cranny was upturned in his hasty search for any comfort in his older brother. Coming down from his previous elation, he exited the van and took a step back into the darkness which seemed to hold his hand as he left and no longer forced the breath out of his body.  
Tommy’s confidence didn’t waver until what felt like two weeks of walking, but he couldn't be sure. Miraculously, he was craving the need for sleep, although he did feel the deep sense of dread that you get after long tedious hours at work. His icy-gaze remained forward as he searched for any sign of life, or in better words, the lack thereof, signaling his brother. As if God herself heard his pleas, he saw it. At first he thought his impossible feat of not sleeping had caught up to him, he flinched at the thought of Dream seeing him like this, he never liked it when he wasn't taking care of himself. Even though the nightmares of TNT and the punishments he endured were the culprits in his sleep deprivation. Not long after, he blinked and rubbed at his eyes and it was there. The familiar red beanie that adorned his brother’s head, like a crown for the world’s most adamant believer in the will of good men. Brown locks ruffled down the figure's head and a soft sigh left it’s lips, as if letting go of a bundled up nervousness.  


“Wilbur?”, the question left his lips like a secret told between two friends.  
The figure froze and clenched its fists, its knuckles going even more lethally white from the grip. He turned around and sure enough Tommy was met with the face of his dead brother. His peony-colored lips, laced with the blood of his final moments parted to let out a pained gasp.  


“Tommy? You- you shouldn’t be here. It’s not possible.”, Wilbur began his voice coated in disbelief, his words becoming quieter as he continued. The air from his voice fogging up his glasses, until Tommy couldn’t look his brother in the eyes, “You have to go Tommy. It’s been too long.”  


That phrase struck Tommy to the bones. Too long? Has it been so long that he no longer wished to go back? He took a moment and found that it might be the case. Or perhaps Wilbur knew something he did not. The crazed look in his eyes so similar to that of Pogtopia surely hinted at it. His throat tightened as he tried to speak, but only a soft whimper, so unlike himself, left his body. His mind was racing with all the things he’d wish to share and confess to Wilbur, but it felt as though tall obsidian walls were at the base of his throat, threatening to keep him in this state until they got what they demanded. Then, suddenly, everything was hot. So incredibly stifling hot that Tommy thought his skin would melt off his body. He let a sweltering hand reach out to Wilbur and Wilbur returned a guilty and knowing look into his eyes. The feeling of hands crept onto his abdomen, too large to be his own. They didn’t deserve a place on him, but they clawed and strangled his body as if he were theirs. He felt hot tears roll down his cheeks and blurring his vision, the liquid soon evaporating even before it reached his chin. He sobbed, wailing out to Wilbur for any sense of comfort. His only sense of familiarity was dissipating between his very eyes and he was helpless, just like he felt in those countless battles for his own pride. His limbs were growing heavy as he sank down to the ground, the hands still beckoning him to a place he didn’t know. He laid his forehead on the ground giving into the skin-mutilating temperature, and let out a choked breath. If anything was going through his mind, it was the thankfulness that no matter how many times he’d wish to plunge himself into the lava in the nether, he didn’t. Not if it was like this. He’d die a thousand deaths other than the one he was convinced he was enduring now, to end the hurt that seeped into his soul and refused to leave. A deep fire tearing away at every part of him.  


The grasping hand pulled away from him, but two still remained. Two hands clenched at his collar and Tommy did not dare open his eyes, in fear he’d open to see the orange and red hues tauntingly dance across his vision.  


“Tommy!”, a deep voice commanded his name. The voice pounding around in his brain. Tommy pursed his lips, hoping whoever’s voice was nailing at his ears would just leave him in peace and drop him back in the darkness.  
“Tommy.”, the voice said low and dark, like a threat that had yet to be said, “I know you’re there Toms.”  


Now that’s what got his attention no one in this world,not even Tubbo, had called him that. That nickname was reserved for Wilbur’s voice and Wilbur only. In a desperate attempt to see his brother again. To savor the moment of a time that is now buried beneath the beaten prime path. To simply be guarded from the coldness of an empty ravine, he blearily blinked open his eyes. Behind the cloudy haze of the heat, he could see crying obsidian showering down on him like small lilac stars falling to the earth. Tommy reached into his pocket for the note on the card, but only felt the familiar sensation of ash under his nails.  


He almost wanted to stay there and admire the beautiful hues covering his senses when a small plea, “Wilbur?”, strayed from his tongue without his permission. That’s when he saw it. Not a mere 2 inches form his face was the porcelain white of a mask adorned with what may haunt him for the rest of his life, a deathly-colored smiley face staring right back at him.


End file.
